Body sounds are routinely used by physicians in the diagnosis of various disorders. A physician may place a stethoscope on a person's chest or back and monitor the patient's breathing or heartbeat in order to detect adventitious (i.e. abnormal or unexpected) lung or heartsounds. The identification and classification of adventitious lung or heart sounds often provides important information about pulmonary or cardiac abnormalities.
It is also known to fix one or more microphones onto a subject's chest or back and to record lung sounds. U.S. Pat. No. 6,139,505 discloses a system in which a plurality of microphones are placed around a patient's chest. The recordings of the microphones during inhalation and expiration are displayed on a screen, or printed on paper. The recordings are then visually examined by a physician in order to detect a pulmonary disorder in the patent. Kompis et al. (Chest, 120(4), 2001) disclose a system in which M microphones are placed on a patient's chest, and lung sounds are recorded. The recordings generate M linear equations that are solved using a least-squares fit. The solution of the system is used to determine the location in the lungs of the source of a sound detected in the recordings.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,788 discloses an ultrasound tissue imaging system having an acoustic transducer, and imaging means for producing an image of tissue. The system also includes Doppler imaging means to produce a scanned acoustic image of moving tissue that is displayed superimposed on the ultrasound image.